From 1995 to 2003, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft spent its time exploring Jupiter’s system. In these years, the aforementioned spacecraft was able to make 11 flybys over one of Jupiter’s icy moons: Europa.
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On the 26th of September 1998, the spacecraft was able to take highly-detailed photos of Europa’s surface — photos that scientists now revisit as they prepare for future missions, such as the Europa Clipper, which is targeted to launch in 2023 or 2025.
“We’ve only seen a very small part of Europa’s surface at this resolution,” Cynthia Phillips, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and Europa project staff scientist working on future missions, said in a statement. “Europa Clipper will increase that immensely.”
More details about this story over at Space.com.
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute)
Source: neatorama